Last Sunday while I was practicing at the my local club they were running lead reclamation on the berm in a nearby bay. I stopped and talked to the guys and they were kind enough to explain some of the operation. This is not my club doing the work but an outside company.
Looking at the pic. the skid steer scoops up a portion of the berm and drops it in the grey hopper at the front of the trailer. The skid steer's scoop has some sort of grill or grate so that when it dumps, large rocks stay in the scoop and don't enter the hopper.
From the hopper, a conveyor carries the dirt into a large mesh drum in the grey yellow bottomed area in the middle of the trailer. This is a ball mill, it has 4" diameter steel balls that ride in the mesh drum with the dirt and help to crush it down finer. The finer product ends up on a conveyor belt below.
That belt carries it to the belt that is visible feeding the 2 even finer mesh drum/ball mills at the rear of the trailer. The mesh in these drums is fine enough to capture the lead bullets-brass-small rocks and keep them in the drums. The fine dirt then falls through the drums is ejected out the back by the final conveyor belt.
The 2 rear drums can be angled up higher to make the balls work more efficiently and the ends of the drums have gates to allow the material to be dumped out but retain the 4" steel balls. The dumped bullets/rocks/brass is dumped off the trailer by a sideways conveyor that is visible just above the rear brace.
I'm not sure what kind of post processing is being done, from what I see this is only recovering lead bullets by size.
This pic is from them working on one of the 5 action bays. These bays have scheduled matches in them for at least 10 matches a month, plus a lot of folks practicing when there are no matches during the week.
Then add in the other 2 pistol and 2 dedicated rifle bays on the grounds. Those ranges date from when the property was first purchased. I'm still looking into the history of the club, probably before the 1950s. That's a lot of lead.
Not sure how often it would be economically viable to do this but I have been a member since 1996 and this is the first time that I know of that the club has done this.
Gringop
Ps: just for giggles, Environmental Scientists in the Wild West
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